Calypso's Tears
by smilecandyxo23
Summary: On an early morning on her desolate island, Calypso contemplates her life and the future that awaits her...


In the inky black of the universe, an unbound, floating puddle of land, no more than an ink stain on black sky, wafts through dimensions and eras. It is unaware of the time it floats peacefully through. There is no such thing as time, no way to mark the days, the years, the centuries that Calypso's Island has existed through.

On a particularly misty, early morning, a lone figure clothed in black garb and shrouded in tendrils of fog walks the pristine shore. Turquoise water laps the pale sand and the feet of the woman. She gazes about herself. The sun (or the closest thing to it on this island) hasn't yet flooded the land and so the rippling dunes are cloaked in dancing shadows that move as if in sync with an intricate patchwork the tangy breeze has created. Everything seems tinted grey, even the elaborate garden in the distance.

Calypso sighs. It is when dawn hasn't yet fully broken and revealed the sun god's, Apollo, golden mirth, that she truly detests this beautiful island. The clear water which surrounds her home on all sides isn't a picturesque panorama for her: it is a boundary that keeps her in and thus is nothing more than a wall disguised in Nature's beauty.

She takes a tentative step further into the translucent water. The waves nip at her calves and she lifts the skirt of her long gown just in time. Perhaps it is the salty aroma in the air, perhaps the sea that whisks around her ankles that is responsible for the way Calypso's eyes shine bright with a fluid of their own. She blinks for the first time, startled to find that her lashes open wet.

In amazement, she lifts a pale finger to directly below her eye, just in time to catch a pearly tear, which is scalding on her frozen skin. A wrinkle appears between the fine arches of her brows as she brings away her finger and gazes at the wet stain on her skin with utter perplexity. Did she just let loose a tear? The possibility of crying had never occurred to her. Did immortals cry? She had never though it conceivable to do so but the smudge of salty water on the precipice of her finger proved this was, indeed, possible.

Calypso let her hand drop and clenched it into a fist at her side. The pain of her nails digging into pale flesh was an emotion she gladly latched on too. Everyday, Calypso sang the song of sorrow and followed the path of solitary confinement. She was tired of the monotone quality to her life: a life, which to her, seemed to have no purpose.

For the fleetest possible moment, Calypso thought of the option of death. But she knew that faint wish wouldn't be granted. It would be too easy for the gods. They needed her to suffer, to watch her die a thousand times over again yet still come up breathing.

Calypso lost track of the times she had withered to unfeeling stone inside. Each time one of those heroes came, her life took on a new light, new purpose and though she told herself she could never achieve the ultimate goal of reciprocating love, her heart would beat with newfound vitality and joy would course through her blood. However, each time they left (for they all left), she would shrink into her shell and become like she had when they had arrived, only with one more shattered heart and one more discarded future.

With a sharp intake of breath, Calypso turned away from the expanse of sea that ever called to her, daring her to try and sail across to freedom. But what existed at the end of the sea, if it ever did end? A gateway to Earth was improbable at best. A door to Olympus was even less probable. Maybe there was nothing and she would tumble into the maw of the universe, into a black velvet blanket embroidered with wheeling stars and fading galaxies.

Calypso shook her head, banning herself from thinking such ridiculous notions. She let her skirt drop as she stepped onto dry land. Sand crusted her wet feet as she made to go up a winding path threading through the dunes to her garden, where she would wile away the rest of the day, which had only just begun. At the ridge of the tallest dune, before she sank back into the shadows, she glanced over her shoulder. The view was breath taking and the shore impossibly perfect. But the end of the sea was not in sight. Another tear joined the first and she hurriedly turned away and ran down the side of the dune.

Moments later, Calypso entered the confines of her garden. The island was a beautifully decorated prison cell and she would be its unwilling inhabitant for all eternity, with nothing but the lull of rolling waves and enchanting perfume of her prized blossoms to accompany with her. Calypso was doomed to continue her solitary existence, to never find joy, nor death, nor, to some degree, life. She had nothing but the bitter taste and raw sorrow of her tears. Calypso's tears.


End file.
